HISTORICAL NOTICE OF GLANDERS — FARCY. 103 



develop into pustules,ancl xdtimately suppurate and disci targe 

 pus, which is charged luith the specific virus of the disease. 



Historical Notice of Glanders and Farcy. — There is little 

 doubt that glanders and farcy, considering their wide geo- 

 graphical distribution, and their constant malignancy through 

 all time, must have been observed from a remote antiquity. 

 The earliest notice of this disease — regarding glanders and 

 farcy as essentially one — is probably that by Apsyrtus, a 

 veterinary officer in the army of Constantino the Great, in the 

 fourth centmy. It is also, in the fifth century, described by 

 Vegitius, Both of these, and others of the early writers on 

 the diseases of the horse, under the names oi Malleus, Morbus 

 huinidus, etc., have evidently grouped many dissimilar, 

 although dangerous, diseases of that animal. 



Previous to the establishment of the fact that glanders could 

 be communicated to man, a wonderful amount of interest 

 attached to the disease, from its supposed relation to human 

 pathology, being regarded by some authorities as the source 

 from which the poison of syphilis had originated, both having 

 been reported to have appeared at the same time, at the siege 

 of Naples, at the end of the fifteenth century. These ideas 

 have, however, been overturned, experimentation showing 

 clearly that syphilis and glanders are distinct and not inter- 

 changeable diseases. 



The most notable points in the history of glanders, and 

 those which more than most others have furnished matter for 

 dispute, are its contagiousness and the modes of its develop- 

 ment. 



As early as 1664, Sollysel recognised the contagiousness of 

 glanders ; also Garsault, 1741 ; and both the Lafosses, 1754- 

 1772 ; while in 1797 Viborg, from acciu-ately conducted experi- 

 ments, demonstrated both its malignancy and inoculability. 

 These experiments were confirmed at the beginning of the 

 present century by Gohier and Huzard. It is curious to observe 

 that, notwithstanding such experimental evidence, the sup- 

 porters of the non-contagious theory, composed of able 

 and distinguished Frenchmen, should so long have held their 

 ground, and, through the dissemination of their ideas, entailed 

 so large a pecuniary loss upon their country. 



It was at the Alford Veterinary School, by Bourgelat and 



